Are the rumors true? she wondered. Did she force you into a marriage bargain only so you could once again own Allende? “You loved Marissa. Do you love her still?”
A frustrated sound exited his throat as he flung his hands over his head. “I’m not discussing Marissa now, of all times, for God’s sake!” he exploded.
But Virginia plunged on. “I think it very tacky to jump around from bed to bed, don’t you?”
His eyebrows drew low across his eyes, and he nodded. “Extremely.”
To her horror, her throat began closing as she pulled her fears out of her little box and showed them to him. “She hurt you, and maybe you wanted to use me to hurt her back—” Why else would he want Virginia? She was not that smart, not that special, not that beautiful, either!
She tried to muffle a sob with her hand and couldn’t, and then the tears began to stream down her cheeks in rivers. With a muffled curse, he rose and came around the desk, walking toward her. His face and body became a blur as he reached her, and though she tried to avoid his embrace, her back hit the wall as she tried escaping.
He bent over her, wiped her tears with his thumb. “Don’t cry. Why are you crying?”
The genuine concern in his voice, the soul-wrenching tenderness with which he cradled her face, only made the sobs tear out of her with more vigor. “Oh, God,” she sobbed, wiping furiously at the tears as they streamed down her face.
When he spoke, he sounded even more tortured than she was. “Don’t cry, please don’t cry, amor.” He kissed her cheek. Her eyelashes. Her forehead. Her nose. When his lips glided across hers, she sucked in a breath of surprise. He opened his lips over hers, probed her lightly with his tongue, and said, in a tone that warned of danger, “Please give me ten minutes and I’m all yours. Please just let me…”
When he impulsively covered her mouth, she opened for the wet thrust of his tongue, offering everything he didn’t ask for and more. His kiss was hot and avid, and it produced in her an amazing violence, a feeling that made her feel fierce and powerful and at the same time so vulnerable to him.
The possibility that he was feeling some kind of pity for her made her regain some semblance of control. She pushed at his wrist with one hand and wiped her tears with the other. “I’m all right.”
“You’re jealous.” He took her lips with his warm ones, nibbling the plump flesh between words. “It’s all right. Tell me that you are.”
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
“I was when you danced with Santos,” he rasped, “jealous out of my mind. Out. Of. My. Mind.” His teeth were tugging at her ear, and he was making low noises of pleasure as his hands roamed up her sides, following her form, feeling her.
She dragged her mouth across his hair, softly said, “I can’t do this anymore, Marcos.”
He froze for a shocked moment.
In one blindingly quick move, he lifted her up and pressed her back against the wall, pinioning her by the shoulders. “Is this your idea of getting my attention?”
Her heart thundered in her ears. “I can’t do this any longer. I want more.” A father for our child. A man who’ll always stand by me. Someone who cares.
A nearly imperceptible quiver at the corner of his right eye drew her attention. That was all that seemed to move. That and his chest. Her own heaving breasts. They were panting hard, the wild flutter of a pulse at the base of his throat a match to her own frantic heartbeat. “What more do you want?” His voice was hoarse, more a plea than a command.
She grasped the back of his strong neck and made a sound that was more frustrated than seductive. “More! Just more, damn you, and if you can’t figure out it’s not your money then I’m not going to spell it out for you.”
He stared at her as though what she’d just said was the worst kind of catastrophe. Then he cursed in Spanish and stalked away, plunging his hands into his hair. “You picked the wrong moment to share your wish list with me, amor.”
“It’s not a long list,” she said glumly. She felt bereft of his kisses, his eyes, his warmth, and wrapped her arms tightly around herself. “We said we’d talk, and I think it’s time we did.”
“After midnight? When I’m in the midst of closing the deal of my life?”
“I’m sorry about the timing,” she admitted.
She swallowed hard for some reason, waiting for him to tell her something. He didn’t. His back was stiff as he halted by the window. His breaths were a frightening sound in the room—shallow, so ragged she thought he could be an animal.
But no, he wasn’t an animal.
He was a man.
A man who had ruthlessly, methodically isolated his emotions from the world. She did not know how to reach this man, but every atom and cell inside of her screamed for her to try.
But then he spoke.
“Virginia.” There was a warning in that word; it vibrated with underlying threat. It made her hold her breath as he turned. There was frustration in his eyes, and determination, and his face was black with lust. “Give me ten minutes. That’s all I ask. Ten minutes so I can finish here and then you’ll get your nightly tumble.”